The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [326]
He got up and stretched his arms. Looking down at the small, grassless, fenced-in square of a back-yard, watching an ice wagon pass, he thought of how good he felt this morning. And the sun slanting down the flat sides of the building across the alley! It was going to be a good day.
He took his time washing, and thought of how he would maybe go out in the park and sit in the sun. He dressed lazily and walked to the kitchen for breakfast.
“Your father looked very worried this morning,” Mrs. Lonigan said.
“Well, there won’t be much business now maybe until fall, and he’s worried. By then business will be going again.”
“I do hope that something does happen for your poor father’s sake. He’s like a changed and unhappy man these days.”
“It will.”
“You’re not working today, are you?”
Studs stared at her, wondering. What was the idea of such a dumb question, because she knew he wasn’t or he’d have been gone long before a quarter to nine.
“No.”
“Rest, then, and take it easy.”
“I am. I’m going to the park and get some sun.”
“You better not sit in the grass. It will be damp at this time of the year and you might catch cold. You must take care of yourself.”
“I will.”
After breakfast, he lounged in the parlor, reading the newspaper.
GRAPEFRUIT KING PREDICTS GOOD TIMES
Business Has Improved Forty Per Cent
Says Hiram Cole
That sounded good.
MUSSOLINI PLANS CORPORATIVE STATE
He guessed Mussolini was a smart man, but flipped the pages to the funnies.
Throwing the newspaper aside, he left, thinking of how Moon Mullins was a real character. Slug Mason had been a little like Moon, poor Slug.
He drifted toward Seventy-first Street, looking upon himself as a man with business interests who was puzzled by the problem of selling out or holding onto his investments. Maybe if he held, he’d lose more. Maybe not. Best to think it over so as not to make a mistake.
And he hoped something interesting or exciting would happen in the park. He crossed over Sixty-seventh Street, cut through a path in the bushes and emerged at the extremity of the large golf course. A feeling of being lost and empty, with nothing to do, came upon him, and he stood with his eyes fixed on the sprouting green before him. He’d been anxious to get here, and now that he was in the park, what?
He hoped that he would meet some girl and that they’d get on together. He set off strolling along the edge of the course, with the image of a girl in his head as if she were walking beside him, tall and dark, and sexy, and if he took her rowing she would sit facing him, showing off her thighs, and if they sat on a lonely bench she would wait to be kissed and felt. Jesus Christ, he exclaimed, his desire reaching a painful point.
He looked around, the trees in front of him having grown larger as he approached, the sounds of automobiles as they skimmed through the park like an overtone. He had the feeling that something was going to happen, and he was nervous for it to hurry up, whatever it was. He picked up a branch, swished it, flung it aside. He thought, Christ, he did want a girl, hot, and pretty, and willing, who knew tricks that would set him nearly nuts, the kind that would go shiveringly crazy for him the moment he laid his hand on her. And they would lie around together in the park, or else at her apartment, where they would be stripped, and even maybe taking a bath together.
He saw a patch of grass with surprise, and realized that he had lost his sense of where he was. He felt as if he had just come from a hot time with a girl, and then realized that it had only been wishes, and he wished it had been the real article in the flesh. Across the golf course, so small that they were like images in a picture, he watched a man and woman pursuing golf balls they had just driven. He wondered who they were, what they were, were they in love, and did they sleep together, and were they well off and not bothered by worries over money? Envy of them grew